Microbe-killing antiseptics hold some of the best promise for giving women a way to fight AIDS, but a shortage of funds is hindering their development, the world’s top authority on the pandemic said.
While an AIDS vaccine remains largely a dream, microbicides could be available in a few years, and provide a stop-gap solution to slow an alarming increase in the infection of women during sex, Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, the U.N. umbrella agency for AIDS, told Reuters Wednesday.
“We have a much better chance of finding this local microbicide than we will have for a vaccine. I am more optimistic for that because the concept is clear and simple,” Piot said.
The mutating AIDS virus killed over three million people last year and infected about five million, and keeps defying efforts to create a vaccine.
More funding needed
But Piot said only half of $300 million needed per year to develop microbicides is actually available. “What is a bit disturbing is that funding for microbicide research is not as it should be,” he said. “I think that should be accelerated.”
Women might be able to use microbicides in gel or cream form to shield themselves from HIV infection, without relying on a partner’s consent. U.N. estimates show 60 percent of almost 30 million people with HIV or AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa are women, a proportion growing particularly in societies where women are less able to refuse sex or negotiate condom use.
Piot underscored microbicides’ importance as the first tool that would be controlled by women rather than men.
“That will be such a major breakthrough because anything on HIV prevention today depends on the good will and the discipline of the man,” he said.
Some researchers expect to roll out microbicides, which either kill the virus in the vagina or prevent it from multiplying and infecting other cells, in 2009. Piot did not provide a time frame.
Global funding for AIDS needs this year should reach $8 billion, up from $6.1 billion in 2004, still well short of some $12 billion needed. Piot expected up to $10 billion to be available next year, but the need to jump to $15 billion. “The gap is growing,” he said.
Rich donor countries provide about half the money and the rest is applied domestically by developing countries like Brazil with its acclaimed universal AIDS treatment program.
The lack of money and growing cost of drugs raises the question of sustainability of programs for free access to HIV/AIDS treatment in poor countries, where the epidemic tends to be the most acute.
Piot called for a global drug pricing policy and agreements in which firms would produce their drugs in the countries where they are most needed, which would reduce costs.
